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In a moment of sympathy for Perry, Agent Dewey reflects that “the crime was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act” (245). Nevertheless, in the same moment he is seized by the realization of the horror experienced by the Clutters at the hands of these men: “They had experienced prolonged terror, they had suffered.” In spite of its understanding of the killers and their motivation, the book remains ambivalent on the subject of the crime itself, as it sees the killers through their very last days.